DVD reviews: Rock 'n' Roll High School and Suburbia

We have our take on the recent re-release of these two cult classics

By Matthew Siblo
Published: May 16th, 2010 | 8:30pm

"They're ugly, ugly people" famous character actor Dick Miller proclaims when referring to the Ramones at the end of Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, though he just as easily could have been describing the entire cast of Penelope Spheeris' Suburbia. Taken together, these two seminal films—launching Roger Corman's Cult Classics series from Shout! Factory—continue to serve as touchstones for punk enthusiasts who were there at the beginning ... and those not old enough to remember.

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School’s vision of adolescence, equal parts CREEM and MAD magazines, is one of zany youth wish fulfillment with a roaring, hormonal soundtrack. The film's over-the-top premise, involving a nefarious principal and decibel-splitting hijinks, incorporates every hoary high-school cliché ever conceived: nerds pushed into lockers while paper airplanes cruise through the smoke-filled boys room and braless girls’ gym class. This flimsy, otherwise forgettable slice of late ‘70s cheese would have been lost among the hundreds of Corman B-grade genre films had it not prominently featured the Ramones, whose bewildering presence has cemented its place within the “you need to see how bad this is” punk film cannon.

The band, whose name and songs are repeated ad nauseam, were either great sports or unbelievably high, dutifully grunting their lines when trotted out to lip synch in a convertible or serenading minors in the bathroom. How much could they have been paid to do this? The short answer: not enough. Somewhere along the line, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School abandons its pretense of narrative storytelling, dedicating most of the final act to live Ramones footage. By the time the anti-climactic finale comes along, the girl gets the guy, the evil disciplinarian is badly injured, the Ramones have a new hit song entitled "Rock ‘n’ Roll High School," and the student body breaks out into a choreographed dance routine.

Just four years later, Suburbia offered a less-rosy interpretation of the American punk, forgoing the lighthearted party school atmosphere for dour melodrama. If the Ramones offered hedonism via study hall keggers, Suburbia is an after school special meant to scare the audience straight. Latchkey kids, take note: times were tough in 1983, even in the ‘burbs. How bad was it? Wild dogs are eating children in the streets, mothers are hiding their vodka in the stove, and punks are forced to take rats as pets. The Rejected, indeed.

An uneasy air of exploitation looms over the film, whether it’s the camera lingering uncomfortably long over an assaulted woman's breasts or the casual homophobia meant to explain the characters acting out ("I guess I'll go back home to fag city!"). When it forgoes its exposé-like pretensions of providing the audience (parents, adolescents, talk show hosts) with simplistic psychological justifications of why one becomes a punk, Suburbia astutely captures the zeitgeist of its time with glimmers of humor and great performances from D.I., the Vandals, and TSOL.

With the clarity of hindsight, it's hard not to interpret defeat in the tonal difference between the two admittedly unrelated works. By the early ‘80s, punk had already been relegated from major musical movement to fringe subculture making the music grimier and, in some instances, more interesting. If a Germs song came over the loud speaker of the Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, not only would it fail to inspire a galvanizing showstopper, but I'm confident that protagonist Riff Randal would have been the one yanking the 45" from the turntable. Since its inception, punk has teetered between nihilism ("We mean it, man!") and bruised, bleeding heart sincerity (“Man, we mean it!"), and 25+ years after the fact, neither comes across particularly sharp in the unflattering precision of high-definition. All we can do now is appreciate the sublime ugliness.